


tuna, cod, and mackerel

by wanderNavi



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Fishing Rights, Gen, Territory Disputes, Zuko: Professional Cat Napper, kid please just delegate to a diplomat already, peace deals are hard work, the army you’re rapidly withdrawing is howling for their pensions, where on earth did they hold negotiations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29009703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderNavi/pseuds/wanderNavi
Summary: Sokka wasn’t happy about getting dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn, nor was Zuko happy doing the dragging in the first place, but the day’s notes for the unending peace negotiations weren’t going to prepare themselves.
Relationships: Sokka & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26





	tuna, cod, and mackerel

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday, me. 
> 
> This fic is kinda set in the same universe as [“Bakekujira”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28581663) in my head.

Sokka wasn’t happy about getting dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn, nor was Zuko happy doing the dragging in the first place, but the day’s notes for the unending peace negotiations weren’t going to prepare themselves.

As he dragged his hands through his slightly gross hair – there was no time for a bath last night – Sokka’s brain was still at least sixty percent asleep and that did nothing to help his listening comprehension. Behind him, Zuko, the morning maniac he was, read aloud from his nearly illegible and incomprehensible notes, “I think the Earth Kingdom is sending someone new, _again_ , today. So, that’s…”

“A mess,” Sokka yawned.

“That.”

Before they departed from the privacy of Sokka’s assigned quarters, Zuko glanced through the slightly grimy glass of the windows at the steadily lightening sky. Pink streaks of clouds striped across the blue. He said, “I really hope they don’t dissolve into a dozen city-states before negotiations finish.”

Slinging his work bag over his shoulder, Sokka shook his head and corrected, “Better to get it done sooner than later. Or else we’ll need to renegotiate _everything_ with five new people right when we finally finish.”

Zuko grimaced in deep, genuine pain. “Okay, bad idea, how do we make that _not_ happen?”

“Us, nothing. Only Aang and Suki, maybe Toph too, can manage that. Come on.” They exited the room, though not without one last wistful glance Sokka threw towards the warm bed left behind. He did it every morning to the point of almost ritualistic routine.

The walk towards the room Zuko stubbornly and fiercely staked out as his study passed in silence while Sokka sluggishly prodded more of his brain into consciousness. The yelling of birds filled the air above their heads as they cut through courtyards along curving paths of stone laid besides slow, murmuring streams of water and cultivated bamboo clusters among craggy limestones. The faint noise of the rest of the complex rousing for the day drifted through the slightly humid air. Sokka yawned again and didn’t bother covering his mouth.

Rays of bright light slashed across the landscape as the sun finally breached the eastern horizon. The dawn light struck the entrance and thrown open windows of their destination, along with the servant bowing at their approach. Zuko nodded, mind on other topics, and said plainly, “Thank you. You’re dismissed.”

“As you command.” The servant bowed once more and Sokka watched with his ever-present bemusement as he took several steps backwards before turning away towards other parts of the awakening compound.

“I still don’t get why they do that,” Sokka commented as Zuko pulled the door open.

“Hmm?” Zuko glanced back without clear understanding.

“The whole—” Sokka sketched out a vague mimicry of the servant’s behavior with a series of loose gestures. Zuko’s nose scrunches up slightly before comprehension dawns – ha, so his brain also isn’t fully awakened yet either. Hopping back a few steps, Sokka stopped his charades and stepped into the room. The door closed with a click. “It looks kinda funny.”

Zuko’s hand scrubbed against the hair scratching against the base of his neck. It itched, he’d explained when Sokka asked why he kept doing it, now that his hair almost reached his shoulders. “It’s some sort of respect or propriety thing. They just do that? It’s rude otherwise. I don’t – I’m not explaining this well. Uncle could explain it better.”

“Some sort of respect thing,” Sokka repeated to himself because that honestly explained almost all the odd, not overtly violent stuff he’s seen from Zuko’s entourage, then shrugged. It didn’t really matter at the moment. He slipped his bag off his shoulders and dropped it with a thump onto the ground at the side of the table they unconsciously and silently decided was Sokka’s. Zuko preferred facing the door.

They sat down and Sokka rubbed his eyes with one hand while the other hand fumbled his bag open and began pulling his own notes and documents out. He heard the faint trickle of water poured onto an inkstone and dragged his hand away from his face so he could watch Zuko.

According to Toph, Zuko was embroiled in something of a passive aggressive argument with most of his staff and servants over what he was allowed to do on his own, especially given his title as Fire Lord. After several years acting largely independent, Zuko stood determinedly for the stance that the answer should be “a lot.” The staff disagreed, vehemently, though politely. Apparently. Sokka couldn’t really tell, all he saw were plenty of gracious smiles and the flutter of helpful assistance and Toph laughing so hard when they’re all in an empty room that she toppled over, unheeding of Zuko’s sputtering. 

It took two weeks of Zuko’s grimacing and requesting and finally pulling an Uncle Iroh card – “I learned from Uncle; it’s meditative” – for the servants to let Zuko grind his own ink at the beginning of every brainstorming session he had with Sokka first thing in the morning. Propping his chin on one palm, elbow braced on the table’s surface, Sokka watched the swirls of black draining into the pool of the inkstone and Zuko’s neck and shoulders relaxing, the tension already accumulated so early in the day temporarily draining away. The inkstick, with curling dragons carved in relief upon its surface and painted in thin highlights of gold and red and green, had been worn down almost halfway by the circular grinding motions of Zuko’s hands every morning.

The minutes passed by quietly: Zuko holding a sleeve back with one hand, Sokka observing without comment as the smell of tea and fresh ink fills the room. Finally, Zuko set the small cup of water and the inkstick aside and tested his work against the corner of a piece of scrap paper. The brush stokes came out in a thick and strong pure black.

He flipped open one of the books the servants set up across the surface of the table. Sokka straightened up and poured them both tea. He took a bracing sip of the hot liquid and blinked himself towards being fully awake.

“Fishing rights are on the agenda for today,” Zuko sourly said then tempered his scowl. “You should probably help your dad and the Northern Tribe instead today.”

But Sokka simply shrugged and downed another mouthful of the strong, slightly over-steeped tea he and Zuko pretended didn’t exist around Iroh. “I’ll probably check in with Dad and the others, so we don’t accidentally step on too many toes,” Sokka said. “But I bet they have this all mostly figured out already.”

Nodding, Zuko drained his own cup of the bitter drink and passed a coastal map in Sokka’s direction. “Didn’t Katara mention helping with remapping the deeper ocean currents and seabed? I think these are slightly out of date.”

“Remapping’s not going to be done anytime soon, even if more waterbenders join the team. Their ship can only go so fast and still be accurate,” Sokka replied as he accepted the unrolled scroll and peered at the land masses in the corners. “Yeah, this is definitely out of date for current fishing.”

A grumbling noise surfaced out of Zuko’s throat and he refilled his cup.

“Which, by the way,” Sokka waved the map, “is still such a weird idea, sea territory—”

“ _Coastal waters_.”

“ _Sea territory_ – it’s just, it’s weird. The Water Tribes don’t have anything like this,” Sokka said and flicked open another map. His brain finally chugged into ninety percent awake.

Shrugging, Zuko said, “If Earth Kingdom fishing vessels appeared right of Fire Nation coasts, our fishermen would probably, I’m not joking, probably harpoon them and sink them. And they would to us too. It’s sensitive. It’s,” he smacked a hand over Sokka’s resurgent waving in his face, “territory. Land property, being able to eat from the sea, a _staple_ of Fire Nation diet.”

Sokka dropped his antics with a grin, but then grew serious. “Is the Earth Kingdom aware of those fishing trawlers? Because, I talked with Dad and the Northern folks already, _we_ definitely know about the trawlers. They’re…”

The sunlight pushed through the paper doors in a saturated profusion of yellow and orange. A shaft of blinding white sliced through the window and its path slowly crawled over Zuko’s red robes and lit the gold embroidery into a molten brilliance. The pupil of his right eye contracted in the light, smaller than the pupil of his scarred left, and the slight pinch to his brows was only partly from the glare. He filled in, “A mess.”

“That,” Sokka echoed.

Zuko’s right hand clenched slightly in thought, then he leafed through the notes until he pulled out a thin booklet bound with white thread contrasting against smooth, black covers. Sokka watched him lick his index finger and page through the sheets until he reached what he was looking for – Zuko was definitely reading up last night instead of sleeping, damn it, Sokka told him to cut that out or he’d tattle on Iroh. Reading from the booklet, Zuko said, “With so many people conscripted into the military, without trawling the Fire Nation wouldn’t have been able to feed our population as easily. Which we’ve always been concerned about.”

“Feed the army, you mean.”

“Feed the army, but _more than that_ , feed the people in peacetime too. It’ll free them up for other jobs, which I still have to figure out because –” Sokka made a face, he knew, he heard all the worst fears about armed revolt clearly, and Zuko swiftly moved on. “I can’t easily ban trawling.”

“And how much of the stuff those ships pull up ends up thrown out?” Sokka challenged and now Zuko made a face because _he_ knew too. It was a lot; it was wasteful, Sokka said many times, badgering Zuko around to accepting the fact.

There was another problem too, a problem Sokka had no idea could even exist before he left the South Pole and experienced the ordeal of the last few months which had been educational in ways dreadful and unimaginable. He pointed out, “You’re going to have a whole other problem with feeding your people if you manage to _overfish_ your waters. Which I’m sure will also piss off the local spirits.”

“Quotas,” Zuko repeated from every single time they talked about this.

“Quotas,” Sokka said, maybe mockingly.

That short temper of Zuko’s sparked and he unhappily snapped, “Do _you_ have a better idea that isn’t just ‘take only what you need’? Because what I’m dealing with isn’t just a single village—”

“The idea can totally still apply.”

“—I’m dealing with my whole nation, where I have whole cities that don’t fish but do _eat_ fish.” Then he laid out the checkmate, “The Earth Kingdom delegation is also agreeing to quotas.”

It was Sokka’s turn to drain his tea. “This is so wrong on so many levels.” He lifted the tiny lid and peered into the squat pot. They were going to need to call in a servant for more soon at this rate.

“Just, help me figure out how many miles off the coastline the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation get to claim,” Zuko closed the discussion with.

They settled into the flow of work: sharing notes, comparing notes, arguing over notes when Sokka would say something along the lines of, “You know that’s messed up,” and Zuko would testily answer, “It’s not _that_ messed up.” If the Earth Kingdom didn’t know the full extent of how much fish the Fire Nation could haul out of the oceans every season, they would soon enough. And as much as the idea of quotas rubbed wrong against everything Sokka learned from his father and his mother and the men and women of his tribe, the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation fully embraced the system. Their debate wasn’t over whether the program should exist or not but over how much everyone divvied up.

Zuko flicked through a frequently consulted scroll, his tongue peeking out just slightly while he hunted for his statistics handed to him by his army staff because they apparently kept an obsessively accurate census of the Fire Nation’s population and its projected growth in _every single_ precinct and district of the empire. He muttered, “I think these numbers are too low.”

Leaning over, Sokka asked, “Which?”

And with an ease that definitely gave his ministry staff conniptions over breaches of sensitive information of national importance, Zuko showed Sokka the columns of numbers and said, “These projections are for wartime and people aren’t dying that rapidly anymore. And, uh,” he blushed and hurriedly finished, “I think someone mentioned something to me about more people expecting children this year than normal?”

Ever helpful, Sokka snorted with laughter.

But he was able to provide actual advice and said, “Then make that part of the treaty up for periodic review.”

Zuko made an affirmative noise and scrawled out a note, still blushing. He said as he wrote, “I need to make sure my diplomat talks with you at least somewhat when he arrives. Not as frequently as we do, but enough that he _will_ respect you.” He narrowed his eyes and glanced up towards Sokka.

“Good, maybe there’s hope I’ll actually get my full beauty sleep every day around here then,” Sokka drawled. He squawked in fake affront when Zuko flicked him in the arm because he went to the same school of social skills for runaway nobles as Toph did. He certainly learned the same unrepentant grin from her.

“It’ll be nice to head back to the Fire Nation,” Zuko sighed with faint longing. The very thought of his imminent return softened his posture and his attention slipped away from the notes and maps piled high before them.

Rubbing his abused arm one last time, Sokka said, “I know you’re excited to head back—”

“Yeah.”

“—and it’s really important to you. But I don’t get why you’re this happy, ‘cause—”

Zuko’s face slumped into weariness and he tugged at his still regrowing hair. Sokka gestured, all encompassing. “—there’s the whole—”

“War crimes bill. The proposed laws,” Zuko sighed heavily. “Ugh, it’s going to be a tough sell. I’m not doing anything _ex post_ , I’m explicitly not allowing anything _ex post_ , but it’s still. Ugh.”

“Is that raging fight really better than talking about fish?” Sokka asked.

Sighing again, Zuko explained, “Yes, because at the end of the day, I can pretty much just tell everyone to shut up and accept what I do regardless of if they like it or not. Can’t really do that here.”

That put things mildly concerning the current state of negotiations. The Earth Kingdom was as bullheaded as they came, made worse by the crumbling support internally for remaining as one central political unity, especially now that Ba Sing Se wasn’t turning such a blind eye on continental affairs anymore. And the Fire Nation was nearly just as intractable, arguing up and down that the _Avatar_ defeated them, not the Earth Kingdom, so their opponents could take any high ground they believed they had and shove it where the sun didn’t shine. Meanwhile, the Water Tribes hung back and watched for any and every opportunity they could interject their own interests, frequently causing further consternation.

Poor Aang. No one taught him how to deal with this part of maintaining balance in the world. At least Zuko could send discrete letters back to the Fire Nation for advice from Iroh.

“Fair point.”

Zuko scrubbed his hands over his face and Sokka watched the familiarity in his fingers as they rubbed along the creases and edges of his scar. The Fire Lord grumbled, “No one’s heard of international laws like this before. They’re all going to call for my head behind my back. Taxation reforms, no problem. Land ownership reforms, no problem. Social caste reforms, no problem, it’s all for the war. International peace arbitration? Absolutely not.”

Sokka reached across the table and patted him on the shoulder a few times. He said, “You, my friend, seriously need more sleep,” then he refilled Zuko’s teacup with more of the super strong brew.

A noise that Sokka elected to count as agreement came out of his friend. Glaring through the papers all over the table, Zuko said, “I am getting sleep.”

“Cat naps don’t count.”

“ _Power_ naps, you can try it. It’s just twenty minutes at a time.”

“I find you curled up half shoved into a closet like a pygmy puma because it’s the only quiet place you can find on short notice,” Sokka commented, wry. “Cat naps.”

Zuko looked at him, put upon, the exact same expression he gave to his servants when they materialized in full procession brandishing combs and layers and layers of clothing or when they demurely hassled him about his eating habits. It was a mixture of bone-weary exasperation and genuine appreciation, blended together into a form of suffering that only made everyone fuss over him even more. “Thanks, Sokka.”

Sokka beamed. “No problem.”

**Author's Note:**

> federal agent: so, why did you file an FOIA request about…counterintelligence surveillance methods and DOD robotics development?  
> me: it’s my birthday. 
> 
> I’m always up for chatting about ATLA over on Tumblr on [marginal-notes](https://marginal-notes.tumblr.com/).


End file.
